Bonfire of the Wingnutteries: Howard Kurtz attacks Fox's slobbering promotion of the Tax Day Tea Parties
By John Amato Monday Apr 13, 2009 1:00pm
(h/t Heather at Video Cafe)
Howard Kurtz hit FOX News for their promotion of the "Tea Party" protests on CNN's Reliable Sources. He actually says the shows are now "a full-fledged Fox fight."
KURTZ: The folks at Fox News have found something to be fore in this age of Obama. They are firmly in favor of tea parties.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
KURTZ (voice-over): On Wednesday -- that would be April 15th -- there will be tax protests around the country on the theme of the original Boston Tea Party. TaxDayTeaParty.com says it was inspired by that rant against President Obama's mortgage aid plan by CNBC's Rick Santelli.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: President Obama, are you listening?
NARRATOR: From sea to shining sea, in every city, we, the people, take our nation back.
KURTZ: Among those backing what's being billed as a grassroots movement, a conservative blogger, Michelle Malkin, a Fox contributor. Newt Gingrich, the former House-speaker-turned-Fox-analyst, will also will be attending one of the parties. Fox News, whose new online slogan is "Just Say No to Biased Media," began publicizing the protests, and soon some hosts were signing on.
GLENN BECK, FOX NEWS: We're getting ready for next week's Tax Day tea parties. All across the country, people coming together to let the politicians know, OK, enough spending.
SEAN HANNITY, FOX NEWS: And, of course, April 15th, our big show coming out of Atlanta. It's Tax Day, our Tax Day tea party show. Don't forget, we're going to have "Joe the Plumber."
KURTZ: Now, the hosts at Rupert Murdoch's network all make up their own minds, right? But soon the tax protest became a full-fledged Fox fight.
BECK: Fox News with "Your World With Neil Cavuto" is going to be live in Sacramento, California at 4:00 p.m.. That's 4:00 p.m. Eastern, 1:00 p.m. Pacific. Our show is going to be at the Alamo at our regular time. Then "Hannity" will be in Atlanta, Georgia, at 9:00 p.m. Eastern, 6:00 p.m. Pacific. And then Greta is live in Washington, D.C., 10:00 p.m. Eastern, 7:00 p.m. Pacific Time.
KURTZ: These hosts said little or nothing about the huge deficits run up by President Bush, but Barack Obama's budget and tax plans have driven them to tea.
On the other hand, CNN and MSNBC may have dropped the ball by all but ignoring the protests.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
KURTZ: Glenn and company joining the somewhat over-caffeinated tea parties. They are commentators who are paid for their point of view, and these aren't Republican Party events. At least not officially. Obviously, they're playing to their conservative base.
The test for me is whether these Fox hosts occasionally find something nice to say about President Obama. In the interest of being fair and balanced, of course.
The right-wingers want to know how FOX is financing this movement? It's because they are endlessly promoting it on every show that has. The hosts are saying they will be covering the event as if it's a presidential debate.
And that type of publicity costs, ladies and gentleman. It costs big time, and FOX is giving thousands upon thousands of dollars of free advertising to a movement that is being financed by right-wing special-interest groups who DO NOT care about the working class in America. It's shameful for a TV network to engage in such slobbering programming, but it's FOX and Roger Ailes. They use their media as a wedge to attack liberals and Democratic politicians every single day. It's what Ailes has lived for ever since he was a Nixon operative.
It's nice that Howard Kurtz admits that FOX is acting like a propaganda network, but when he says CNN and MSNBC might be missing the boat, he cheapens his complaints somewhat. CNN and MSNBC are smart enough to know what's happening here. They've obviously made a conscious choice not to feed the Bonfires of Wingnuttery.
Login or Register to post comments.
I'm just astounded that any liberal goes on that network- it's a disservice to rational people.
Gee I thought only us crazy liberals did mass protests. According to all the righties I've ever read, they detest mass protests. They say that's only something stupid liberals do. It's doesn't change anything. Conservatives are too dignified to engage in such street theatre, according to them. My how things have changed. Yet another way in which righties are hypocrites.
that these teabaggin protestors have no idea what the original Tea Party protest was actually about...and they have NO idea that they're protesting the tax cuts that they supported when bush was pushing them through congress.
The ignorance on display from the right is amazing.
The same guys who used to ballwash Bush are now teabagging each other.
I'm not a Howard Kurtz fan, but he certainly delivered the goods.
A guest on Glenn Beck's show just passed out on camera and fell to the ground. He kept saying, "I'm passing out...I'm passing out" and then he fell to the floor. They cut to commercial.
There can't be much in the vicinity of that gasbag (GB).
Did he land on Beck?
Did Beck start crying?
When Beck came back, he said the guy was fine and then he said, when the guy fell his staff didn't hurry to his aid because they thought it was just a part of the show. (what does that say about the show's theatrics?) Then he said the guy apologized to him for passing out. Beck said he told the guy, don't apolized, our ratings will be through the roof. (What does that say about Beck's humanity?)
do they breathe on planet Wingnuttia? Guests not used to this elevation of insanity, may want to bring oxygen on the set with them.
that would explain a lot.
It was the sulphur gas emanating from Beck's assless chaps area!
US News Media Fails America, Again
By Robert Parry
April 13, 2009
Here are some excerpts of Parry's long but very useful article here which are more than worthwhile noting:
"Watching Glenn Beck of Fox News rant about “progressive fascism” – and muse about armed insurrection – or listening to mainstream pundits prattle on about Barack Obama as the “most polarizing President ever,” it is hard to escape the conclusion that today’s U.S. news media represents a danger to the Republic....By and large, the Washington press corps continues to function within a paradigm set in the 1980s, mostly bending to the American Right, especially to its perceived power to destroy mainstream journalistic careers and to grease the way toward lucrative jobs for those who play ball."
"...Democratic hesitancy on these matters then enflames the Left, which expresses its outrage through its own small media, reprising the old theme that there’s “not a dime’s worth of difference” between Democrats and Republicans – a reaction that further weakens chances for any meaningful reform....This vicious cycle has repeated itself again and again since the Reagan era, when the Right built up its intimidating media apparatus – a vertically integrated machine which now reaches from newspapers, magazines and books to radio, TV and the Internet. The Right accompanied its media apparatus with attack groups to go after troublesome mainstream journalists...."
"...One consequence of this media imbalance is that Republicans feel they can pretty much say whatever they want – no matter how provocative or even crazy – while Democrats must be far more circumspect, knowing that any comment might be twisted into an effective attack point against them....So, while criticism of Republicans presidents – from Ronald Reagan to the two Bushes – had to be tempered for fear of counterattacks, almost anything could be said against a Democratic president, Bill Clinton or now Barack Obama, who is repeatedly labeled a “socialist” and, according to Beck, a “fascist” for pressuring hapless GM chief executive Rick Wagoner to resign."
"Bush skeptics were essentially not tolerated in most of the U.S. news media, and journalists who dared produce critical pieces could expect severe career consequences, such as the four CBS producers fired for a segment on how Bush skipped his National Guard duty, a true story that made the mistake of using some memos that had not been fully vetted....Only after real events intervened – especially the bloody insurgency in Iraq and the ghastly flooding of New Orleans – did the mainstream U.S. press corps begin to tolerate a more skeptical view of Bush. However, the news personalities who had come to dominate the industry by then had cut their teeth in an era of bashing Democrats (Clinton/Gore) and fawning over Republicans (Reagan and the two Bushes)....With Barack Obama as President, these “news” personalities almost reflexively returned to the Clinton-Gore paradigm, feeling the freedom – indeed the pressure – to be tough on the White House....Though MSNBC does offer a few shows hosted by liberals and there are a few other liberal voices here and there, the national media remains weighted heavily to the right and center-right."
"For every Keith Olbermann or Rachel Maddow or Paul Krugman or Frank Rich, there are dozens of Larry Kudlows, Sean Hannitys, Bill O’Reillys, Joe Scarboroughs and Charles Krauthammers who take openly right-wing or neoconservative positions — or the likes of Lou Dobbs, John King and Wolf Blitzer, who reflect Republican-oriented or neocon views out of personal commitment or careerist caution."
"The commentariat class also has continued to frame the Republican hatred of Obama as Obama’s fault, describing his “failure” to achieve a more bipartisan Washington or – in its latest formulation – calling Obama “the most polarizing President ever.”It might seem counterintuitive to call a President with approval ratings in the 60 percentiles “polarizing” – when that term was not applied to George W. Bush with his numbers half that of Obama’s. But this notion has arisen because Republicans have turned harshly against Obama, while Democrats and Independents have remained supportive....This gap of about 60 points between Democratic approval and Republican disapproval is called the largest in the modern era. (Bush presumably was less “polarizing” because his Republican numbers slumped along with his approval from Democrats and Independents.)What is rarely acknowledged is that the Republican Party has both shrunk in size and retreated toward its hard-line “base,” meaning that the “polarization gap” could simply reflect the fact that a smaller, more extreme Republican Party hates Obama, while other presidents faced a larger, more moderate opposition party."
Read the entire article @:
http://www.consortiumnews.com/Print/2009/0413...
and for the most part MSNBC. They have contributed to this free-for-all lie fest going on in the media today through complacency. Though MSNBC has good hosts, that is typically only two to four hours out of the day. What are they doing the remainder of the time? How are the helping revive journalism?
giving cnn any credit? Of course we know they were just as complacent as any other media outlet for not doing the job they are supposed to be doing. But at least omeone is calling Fux an their bullshit. Cmon, you have to admit that any time Fux is called out it is satisfying.
In CT, we have two very right wing stations, WDRC 1360 am and WTIC 1080 am. In the morning WTIC 1360 am Radio has on two local right wing jerks named Ray Dunaway and Jim Vicevich who spout hatred all morning long to warm up the idiots in CT for Rush Limbaugh at noon.
On WDRC 1360 am they have on Brad Davis who is then followed by Glen Beck for three hours. Then they put on their own local host named Dan Lovallo until it is time for Mike "Savage" Weiner. So, the dumbing down of America continues as they fire local liberal radio hosts [Colin McEnroe and Stan Simpson at WTIC 1080 am] even in the "Age of Obama" and keep on the right wing local spit-shooters.
The local imitators are as annoying as the idiots like Beck too. You literally have to turn your radio off or listen to NPR--also known to some as "National Pentagon Radio." Oh well.
Then you wonder why candidates like Ned Lamont do not win. Oh yeah, these local hosts are beating up Chris Dodd in CT every chance they get and oh boy, how they like to rile up the people to call in and spread their hatred. Local talk radio in CT is one of the reasons Dodd's numbers have fallen in CT because these jerks spend their entire mornings and afternoons attacking him, and never laying any blame to what the Republicans did during Bush's first six years or the vetoes Bush did when the Dems did pass things the GOP did not like. Bush had his way for most of both terms yet right wing jerks easily forget this fact!
Can we have a fling your shoes at the teabagger counter-protest? just a thought...
you waant to get your ass kicked.
the girls with the pearls and their crappy home-made signs.
Or, perhaps, those intimidating chicken hawks with the yellow
ribbons on their SUVs. Oh yeah, maybe, Sean Hannity. Something tells me that he's the biggest pussy of all.
are they bringing their wives?
You gonna do the ass kickin?
it would depend on several things, type of shoe thrown ie ballet slipper compared to a size 12 metatarsal. Throw a ballet slipper at me I'll laugh and possible point you out to the nearest leo for littering. Size 12 metatarsal? I would have to consider my life and health endangered and be forced to take appropriate action.
Thom Hartmann suggested this morning that progressives attend the teabaggings and bring signs that say "tax the rich" or "break up the big corporations." It would be worth it just to see the bobbing and weaving the fox news camerapeople have to do to avoid filming one of these signs.
They are getting TAX BREAKS from the current administration, yet they are protesting being unfairly taxed.
Their anger ought to be directed toward the CORPORATIONS and THE RICH who've been taking advantage of the little guy, but instead, they direct their anger toward the guy who's trying to change the last administration's INACTION on regulation.
...but you know I'm lucky enough to have a job so I have to work that day.
That sounds like some kind of British holiday...
Its all Very British, yes. Maybe we'll finally get that independence we've been wanting someday.. Now, gotta file my 'francise' tax..
Some guy from the WSJ was on Chris Matthews' show predicting that over one million people will show up to these teabag protests.
The whole thing is just pretty damn weird to me. No, the bailouts were not perfect and I wasn't overjoyed with the payments, but Wells Fargo is paying back the money and Goldman Sacchs has announced they plan on paying back the money. So these are some positives.
When you are stabbed in the chest with a seven inch blade, do you get excited when it's backed out a mere two inches??
just a scratch and it is healing faster than I thought due to some good nursing.
Wait until some community has laid off almost all their cops due to budget cuts and a right winger gets robbed in that community and there aren't enought cops to respond immediately. I bet then they will be willing to pay higher taxes to have more available cops on duty.
They'd pay triple what the tax would be to hire a private security firm.
unless they are in one of the few states that it is either impossible or nearly so to get a carry permit. Most of the right wingers I know, understand that the police are not required to protect any person, just the community at large. And when seconds count the police are only minutes away, except in the case of the recent shooting in NY where the police waited an hr. before entering the building to investigate.
Before they get heavy into the teabagging, I recommend shaving, for a more pleasant experience.
I didn't know what that meant until I googled after watching Rachel's show.
I had to ask someone what it meant. I had never heard of it either but I was getting the feeling it had some sexual connotation.
The nads or the forehead?
ewww.
Fox is claiming they are covering these parties in a big way because it's a big deal. They always follow that statement by saying they are covering this just as they covered the Million Man March, because that too was an important event. Then they toss in that there weren't a million men at the march.
When Fox set up their Fox Nation website and invited people to join up and talk to people like themselves that just seemed so wrong to me. Are they trying to create a "nation" of fox viewers and for what reason?
Fox is covering these events in order to taint them with right wing fanaticsm, and scare away the thinking rational people who are tired of excessive taxation without representation..
The Tea Party protest ideas were originally organize by Libertarians, and the Ron Paul crowd.. FOX and republicans joined in, because they are attracted by the anti-obama rhettoric. Make no mistake - most Big Government republicans don't hate taxing and spending they just hate when democrats get to decide where it is spent.
Side question: How many of you would actually pay taxes, if it were strictly voluntary, without threat of imprisonment? Be honest.
Taxes are the price we pay for a modern society.
I would! I have no problem in paying for things that benefit the community and the country. But when it comes to paying for a war that was based on lies, I do have a difficult time paying for that.
If I need a policeman or fireman for a disaster, why shouldn't I pay something for that need? If anyone has that need, why shouldn't we all chip in to make sure it is available.
That is only the case in this country if you are not a citizen.
Tonight, David Schuster pointed out the following: The Million Man March occured in October 1995. Faux News was launched in October 1996.
How did they cover the Million Man March when they were not even broadcasting yet?
they didn't, and don't even have enough intelligence to make up plausible lies.
On April 15th they, Milkin, The Newt, Hannity, Beck, etc., should all be arrested for littering, loitering, and disturbing the peace.
Bonus; Limbough should be arrested for consuming an inordinate amount of our countries GDP ('Gross' Domestic Product.).
Locally, the protest is to be held in a public park. You know, one maintained with tax dollars. Participants will also, no doubt, insist on driving to the protest on roads paid for by MORE tax dollars.
The stupidity, it burns.
That's why they call them wingnuts! Ha-Ha. They ARE stupid.
Someone is going to get hurt with this brownshirting-for-profit scheme that is being cooked up by the right wingnut noise machine...
The other tragic thing is the astonishing lack of history realization that the con-servatives put forward...
First - The modern day con-servative is the progeny of the Tories/Loyalists to the King (Unitary Executive/Federalists/Dictator) from the Revolutionary Era.
The Tea Act of 1773 was meant by King George (huh, imagine that...coincidence?) to consolidate the power of the gruesome monopoloy known as the East India Company (the Wal-Mart/Microsoft/Uber multinational corporation of its day). To allow the 'free market' if you will to realize its 'natural social darwinism'...unregulated, backed by the King, all powerful corporatocracy that the modern day con-servative believe is God...
So...its a little ironic that the underlying mantra of the current day right wingnut ideology was in fact the King's ideology, while the founding fathers (students of the enlightenment & Thomas Paine) rebelled against the aristocracy (forebearers of the republican power families & corporatist/robber barron democrats of today) and the tyranny of the all powerful state & business merger (ie, fascism) known as the East India Company (which culminated in the Boston Tea party).
In other words....the delicious irony of right wingnut swindle...is they are using the symbolism without fully understanding its origins...
If this doesn't get the results they desire, what's next, tupperware parties?
what they did with all those yellow magnets made in China...
I guess they only 'support the troops' when they're lied into a war of the con-servative geopolitical energy endgame...
with all of those tire gauges I wonder?
sponsored by Vince, the ShamWOW! guy.
http://www.inquisitr.com/20795/shamwow-guy-vi...
This a promotion campaign to unseat President Obama, and it needs to be said out front. The Republican won't say it, yet as a black man, I feel it throughout my bones.
The franchised right-wing nuts want our black president out of office -- anyway anyhow, but someway, somehow. Imagine no more, the conservative hit squads are out in full manipulative, dishonest force.
It is important to call this tea party what it is: a promotion to unseat our current president.
Joseph
Yes, Joseph there is definitely a huge undercurrent of racism here and I agree, that "this a promotion campaign to unseat President Obama," as well as it is from these "franchised right-wing nuts [who] want our black president out of office."
Very astute analysis of yours here and I agree with ya!
This certainly is a white nationalist movement and that these white nationalists have been crying about taxes ever since blacks were able to take advantage of the same social programs that only whites could partake in before the mid-1960's. I agree that the entire anti-tax movement in the United States has always been aimed directly at black people and Spanish people here. And that it has always been the white racists and white nationalists pushing this anti-tax agenda as a result.
I too believe this is the root of their "discontent". Listen to what they say and the signs they carry. These things do not mention government as much as they mention the President.
It's a bigot thang
Fox and the Republicans are playing on. But I believe economics (or more appropriately "greed") is the real motivator here.
Murdoch is no idiot. He understands his market. And just as teenage girls will get emotional about the cute guy on "American Idol," he captures his audience by hitting their base emotions.
Unfortunately, the integrity of the message, and its implications, are meaningless to him, so long as he's making big profits.
In the end, I believe Fox News will cause the demise of the U.S. By allowing one man so much power, the U.S. government has signed its country's death sentence. Fox News will create a civil war, and then be there to cover it, all the while reaping the profits, unashamed of its immorality.
Tee Hee! On Keith's show tonight they use the words, "mouthpieces" and talk about a "taste" of tea bagging.
Ha,
Per David Shuster filling in for Olberman on Monday,
The tea-baggers better have a "Dick Army" to lead them.
Wow, "tea baggers" protesting tax rates that wouldn't touch them, 10% LOWER than during their hero Reagan!.
Can't these people be charged with polluting if they dump anything in a body of water?
Peace.
Then they added "lip service"
Yes, pollution of the water ways should be added.
April 15 (Tax Day) must be the time to gather round and protest the Obama tax cut that went into effect about three weeks ago. Most everyone attending the tea parties - those still employed - are now benefiting from the cut.
Fox News tells them they're being unfairly taxed, so they are.
They are not Americans. They are citizens of Murdochia.
They listen only to what their leaders, Sean Hannity and Glenn Beck, tell them. When Glenn Beck says, "Big Brother is coming to get you," they believe it unquestioned, not realizing that they aren't free at all, but they are following Big Brother.
So these folks are too stupid to LOOK at their paychecks and see the
cut in Federal Taxes?
Imagine their SURPRISE, when they finally do!
They will assume the cut came from their Teabagging?
ROFL............
That's only one out of every 306 Americans.
That's THREE-TENTHS OF A PERCENT of the population.
That's representation you can only see with a MICROSCOPE.
That's a DROP IN THE BUCKET.
THAT'S what's left of the Republican Party.
That's Sean's and Rush's BASE.
Tht's why Obama's approval rating is approaching 70%
Million Nutters March
"Greta will be live in Washington DC..."
Who's going to be stalking Sarah Palin?
If so, I want to watch.
Because in just 2 more days there will be more comedy gold than your side will be able to stand!
So they want a revolution.
"Pro-Democracy" Nutters for ya.
when millions of fratboys from all over this beautiful land of ours converge to the Mall in DC... only to be severely disappointed because their nutter parents were talking about *that other* tea bagging.
Why do republicans hate America? Why are they emboldening the terrorists when this country is at war? Love it or leave it pal!
...this whole Tea Party thing is nothing more than FOX defrauding the Public, fraud in this case being defined by the RICO Act. Fox created this issue, is orchestrating it and is falsely presenting it to the public as if it were a news item that arose from the grass roots. It is also a naked attempt to manipulate the public instead of providing facts from which the Public can come to its own judgements.
This kind of nonesense is going to continue until Obama orders the reformation of the FCC amd until he directs the DoJ to punish broadcaster fraud and until he directs the DoJ to initiate anti-trust actions against the MSM.
A free press and free speech are inalienable rights under the Constitution. The commission of fraud is not. It is a crime. The use of OUR airwaves and OUR bandwidth is not a right, it is a privilege that is contingent upon responsible use and upon serving the interests of the public. It's long past the time that the FCC and the DoJ recall these distinctions to mind.
Any intelligent person knows already that Faux Noise laughingly isn't fair and balanced, but is racist, bigoted, intolerant and greater yet are certainly ignorant, uneducated, habitual liars.
Unemployment benefits and increased food stamps and SCHIP etc., how many will CRY for the F-22s wasteful $350 million per plane cost to the tax payers for obsolescence?
How many will CRY over the cost of over 5000 dead and 10s of thousands soldiers in illegal, unnecessary, and made up "wars on terror"?
How many of these "tea-baggers" protested KBR and Halliburton selling supplies meant for American troops to Iraqi insurgents or even had one word to say about troops electrocuted by faulty KBR electrical "work" in every single building put up by them?
How many of them "upheld the Constitution" while GW and his sidekick were illegally wire tapping U.S. Citizens, lying to us and manipulating us into illegally occupying 2 sovereign nations for OIL PROFITS for the sidekicks "company" and GWs oil buds?
The only thing these hate-mongering, war-mongering terrorist, extremist, religious fanatics care about in this WORLD is that money not be spent on the 95 percent of us who are not in their millionaires/billionaires club.
http://www.jpfo.org/
JEWS FOR THE PRESERVATION
OF FIREARMS OWNERSHIP
America's Most Aggressive Defender
of Firearms Ownership
Reasons Why You Should Join JPFO.
1) - You support the preservation of the Second Amendment.
2) - You believe all of the Bill of Rights must be protected.
3) - You believe in protecting your life and the lives of your loved ones.
4) - You realize educating the public with JPFO intellectual ammunition may prove more useful than lobbying Congress.
5) - You detest American gun laws based on 1938 Nazi weapons laws.
Login or Register to post comments.